Uncle Wiggily in the Woods eBook

“We came out of that very well,” said
the bunny uncle as the bear ran far away.

“Yes, indeed, and here is your top,” spoke
Billie, picking it up off the ground where the bear
had dropped it.

“My top? No that’s yours,”
said the bunny gentleman. “I meant it for
you all the while.”

“Oh, did you? Thank you so much!”
cried happy Billie, and then he ran off to spin his
red top, while Mr. Longears went back to his bungalow.

And if the sofa pillow doesn’t leak its feathers
all over, and make the room look like a bird’s
nest at a moving picture picnic, I’ll tell you
in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and the sunbeam.

STORY XXIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SUNBEAM

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman,
was walking along in the woods one day, sort of hopping
and leaning on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism
crutch, and he was wondering whether or not he would
have an adventure, when, all at once, he heard a little
voice crying:

“Oh, dear! I never can get up! I
never can get up! Oh, dear!”

“Ha! that sounds like some one who can’t
get out of bed,” exclaimed the bunny uncle.
“I wonder who it can be? Perhaps I can
help them.”

So he looked carefully around, but he saw no one,
and he was just about to hop along, thinking perhaps
he had made a mistake, and had not heard anything
after all, when, suddenly, the voice sounded again,
and called out:

“Oh, I can’t get up! I can’t
get up! Can’t you shine on me this way?”

“No, I am sorry to say I cannot,” answered
another voice. “But try to push your way
through, and then I can shine on you, and make you
grow.”

There was silence for a minute, and then the first
voice said again:

“Oh, it’s no use! I can’t
push the stone from over my head. Oh, such trouble
as I have!”

“Trouble, eh?” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Here is where I come in. Who are you,
and what is the trouble?” he asked, looking all
around, and seeing nothing but the shining sun.

“Here I am, down in the ground near your left
hind leg,” was the answer. “I am
a woodland flower and I have just started to grow.
But when I tried to put my head up out of the ground,
to get air, and drink the rain water, I find I cannot
do it. A big stone is in the way, right over
my head, and I cannot push it aside to get up.
Oh, dear!” sighed the Woodland flower.

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” cried
Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice. “I’ll
lift the stone off your head for you,” and he
did, just as he once had helped a Jack-in-the-pulpit
flower to grow up, as I have told you in another story.
Under the stone were two little pale green leaves
on a stem that was just cracking its way up through
the brown earth.

“There you are!” cried the bunny uncle.
“But you don’t look much like a flower.”